Blackstone Group, the New York- based private-equity firm that manages $48 billion in real estate assets, agreed to buy the Motel 6 lodging chain from
Accor SA (AC) for $1.9 billion, adding to its hospitality holdings.
The purchase includes 1,102 Motel 6 and Studio 6 extended- stay hotels in North America with more than 107,000 rooms, Paris-based Accor said today in a statement. Accor,
Europe’s largest hotel operator, rose the most in six months.
Blackstone, under real estate chief
Jonathan Gray, has been acquiring hotels and motels, from lower-priced chains like Motel 6 to high-end properties. The firm, which bought Hilton Worldwide for $20 billion in 2007, is raising a new real estate fund that probably will surpass its current $10 billion pool.
Blackstone plans to invest “significant capital in the company’s properties and to accelerate the expansion of the franchise base,” Gray said in the statement about the Motel 6 acquisition.
The deal is the largest in the U.S. lodging industry since the $3.93 billion acquisition of Extended Stay America Inc. in 2010, in which Blackstone played a role. The chain was bought through a bankruptcy restructuring by a group that also included Centerbridge Capital Partners LLC and Paulson & Co. Blackstone purchased U.K.-based Mint Hotels in a $950 million deal announced in September.
Occupancy at U.S. economy hotels rose to 50.6 percent this year through April from 49.7 percent a year earlier. Revenue per available room, a measure of occupancy and rates, climbed 5.9 percent to $25.01, according to Smith Travel Research Inc. in Hendersonville,
Tennessee.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-22...-to-blackstone-fund-for-1-9-billion.html
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